Roll padding for ironing machines and the like



Aug. 19, 1930'. c. E. GALVIN ROLL PADDING FOR IRCSNING MACHINES AND THELIKE Filed Feb. 2'7, 1928 Patented Aug. 19, 1939 CHARLES EDWARD Garvin,or SPRINGFIELD, OHIO ROLL PADDING FOR IRONING MACHINES AND THE LIKEApplication filed February 27, 1928. Serial No. 257,535.

My invention relates to a resilient cushion or padding material and tomeans and mode of applying such material to rollers. While the inventionwill be described, for illustrative purposes, in its application to'rolls of laundry ironing and pressing machines it is to be understoodthat the padding material is applicable to a wide variety of otherpurposes and shapes other than cylindrical rolls. Furthermore, theapplication of the padding to rolls is not limited to heated rolls bute'xtends to any general purpose cushion rolls. The material 1s alsoquite suitable for padding the bucks of steam pressing machines and maybe'utilized' for other purposes than padding including filter-orstrainer purposes and especially where a flexible heat-resistantmaterial is desired.

' The heated rolls of laundry ironing or pressing machines areordinarily covered with felt, cotton padding, or knitted cotton cordmaterial which deteriorates very rapidly under the influence of heat.Furthermore such padding material soon becomes compact and loses itsresiliency and cushion effect, necessitating frequent replacement.

The present padding materialconsists of a knitted blanket of metallicfibers known in the trade as steel wool. The metallic fibers are formedinto a roving or rope with which are knitted a plurality of tie or warpwires, forming a resilient metallic fabric of uniform thickness, whichis highly resilient and will not readily compact or become compressed,and'which will withstand heat of high degree without deterioration. Inapplying such resilient ad to a cylindrical roll it is combined with abinder cloth which may be canvas or duck'and for rollers subjected tovery high degrees of 1 temperature, such binder cloth may be ofwiregauze or woven wire screen. The end of such binder cloth is secured tothe surface oi; the roller and one or more preliminary turns of thecloth are a plied about the roller, and during the succee ing turn thebinder 'cloth and metallic pad are wound together about the cylinder:The resilient metallic pad is cut to such size and proportion thatitwill exactly agree with the cylindrical surface of the roller to becovered with its opposite margins abutting upon each other. Exteriorlyof such metallic pad one or more final convolutions of the binder clothare applied and the end of the cloth is secured to the underlying turnby stitching. It

A further object of the invention is to provide improved means forapplying such afore described metallic fibrous padding material to thesurface of cylindrical rolls.

A further object of the invention is to pro vide an improved method offorming metallic fibers into a blanket or'pad of uniform thickness andcapable of indefinitely retain ing its shape.

With the above primary and other incidental objects in View, as willmore fully appear in the specification, the invention consists of thefeatures of construction, the parts and combinations thereof, and themode of operation, or their equivalents as hereinafter described and setforth in the claims. Referring to the accompanying drawings wherein areshown the preferred, but obviously not necessarily, the only form ofembodiment of the invention, Fig. 1 is a detail sectional View of aportion of an industrial laundry ironing machine, showing a successionof rollers to which the present form of padding has been applied. Fig. 2is a fragmentary view of a domestic ironing or pressing machine to theroller of which the present padding is applicable. Fig. 3 is a detailperspective view of a portion of a roller prior tothe application of thepadding material showing the tines or barbs by which the initial end ofthe binder cloth is secured. Fig. 4 is a perspective View of a portionof padding material and binder cloth assembled relative to each otherpreparatory to application to a roller. Fig. 5 is a sectionalperspective view of a roller with the padding material applied. Fig. 6is a detail perspective View of a fragmentary portion of the metallicknitted padding or cushion material. Fig. 7 is a further detail viewthereof.

Like parts are indicated by similar characters ofreference throughoutthe several views.

The cushion or padding material in the present case consists of a pad orblanket 1 formed from metallic fibers, known generally in the trade assteel wool. While steel wire is the usual material from which suchfibers are removed, wherefore it receives its designation as steel wool,it is to be understood that to meet special conditions of usage othermetals may be employed. The metallic fibers which are of fine hair likecharacter, are removed from the wirestock by a succession of cutting orscraping tools, which produce such fibers as fine continuous, orsubstantially continuous shavings. These fibers-from the several cuttersare brought together to form a strand or roving of suitable size. Thisstrand or roving is usually quite loosely assembled to an approximatediameter of one inch. The, strand or rope may be loosely twisted uponitself, but ordinarily, a light strandor cotton cord is wound helicallyabout.

the assembled strand or roving in rather widely spaced convolutionssuflicient to hold the assembled fibers together temporarily, untilincorporated in the padding fabric.

The assembled strand or rope of metallic fibers which flow continuouslyfrom the fiber forming apparatus is conducted througha knitting machineor analogous apparatus in which the padding material is fabricated.Reversely disposed parallel portions of the roving of metallic fiber areinterconnected and inter-tied one with another by a plurality of spacedwires of small diameter, which by the action of the knitting machines,are

' interlocked or looped one about the other intermediate each transverseroving of the fibrous metallic material. Fragmentary views of thecompleted material are shown in Figs. 6 and 7. This metallic wool fabricis produced in continuous runs of any desired width and is ordinarilyone-half inch in thickness, although it may be produced of differentthickness by varying the size of the strand or rope of fibers. Themetallic fabric thus produced is subsequently cut to various sizes andshapes for use as cushions or padding material for various purposes. Inits application to a roller, such as a laundry ironing machine roller, aportion of the material is cut to the size equivalent to the surfacearea of the roller to be covered.

This padding unit 1 is then secured by stitching or otherwiseto a stripof binder cloth 2 of greater length than the padding 1. This bindercloth extends in opposite direction beyond the margin of the metallicpad 1. For laundry ironing machines purposes, whether of industrial ordomestic type, the binding cloth 2 is preferably light canvas or duck orany other suitable textile fabric. In the event that the roller is to besubjected to extremely high degree of heat the binder cloth 2 may bewire gauze or woven wire screen. The binder cloth 2 is sufficiently longto afford one or more initial turns about the cylinder or roller inadvance of the metallic wool pad 1, and to afford subsequent to theapplication'of the pad 1 a few additional external turns of the bindercloth. The initial end of the binder cloth 2 is secured to the cylinder3 by any suitable means. A

convenient and suitable means of attachment roller 3 through at leasttwo preliminary turns. The metallic wool pad 1 is attached to the bindercloth in such relation to its end that sufficient length of binder clothis afforded for the predetermined number of turns. Upon continuedwinding of the cloth 2 the pad 1 is wound-through one complete rotationof the roller, together with the next succeeding turn of the cloth.preferably cut to such size that its opposite margins will meet or abutat the completion of the single turn of such pad. However, it isobviousthat if the pad is made of less thickness, two or more turns of themetallic wool pad 1 may be made about the cylinder. Following thewinding of the metallic pad 1 about the cylinder additional turns,preferably two or more are made with the remaining end of the bindercloth 2. This serves to 6, which have polished surfaces over which thegarments to be ironed are passed beneath the padded rollers 5. Inasmuchas the rollers are in direct contact with the heated surfacesintermediate the passages of the gar- The pad 1 is ments, the paddingmaterial is subjected to high temperature. The metallic wool paddingwill withstand such high temperature without deterioration. A similarcondition exists in domestic ironing machines as illussuch fibers arerelatively strong and especially resilient," metallic wool is also madefrom other metals including copper, lead, aluminum, bronze, brass andnickel. It is also produced in various grades or degrees of fineness.Thus knit metallic padding or cushion material may be produced to meet avery wide range of conditions and different.

usage.

While theknitting operation will produce the usual selvage on themargins, it is desirable to bind the edges, particularly the cut marginsformed by separating the pad from the knit stock material. The bindingmaterial ispreferably wire gauze of thin closely woven Wire fabric,which is wire stitched upon the padding as indicated at 9.

While the metallic fabric, forming the subject matter hereof, has beendescribed, for illustrative purposes, in its application to rollpadding, it is to be understood'that it is not limited to such use butmay be applied to other purposes wherein a flexible heat-resistantfabric may be desired.

From the above description it will be apparent that there is thusprovided a construction of the character described, possessing theparticular features of advantage before enumerated as desirable, butwhich obviously is susceptible of modification in its form, proportions,and arrangement of parts, without departing from the principle involvedor sacrificing any of its advantages.

While in order to comply with the statute the invention is described inlanguage more or less specific as to structural features, it is to beunderstood that the invention is not limited to the specific detailsshown, but that the means and construction herein disclosed comprise thepreferred form of several modes of putting the invention into effect,and the invention is therefore claimed in any of its forms ormodifications within the legitimate and valid scope of the appendedclaims.

Having thus described my invention, I claim:

1. A padding for rolls wherein the padding material is secured upon theroll by a winding of cloth enclosing the body of padding materialcharacterized by a layer of metallic wool fibers interposed betweensuccessive turns of the cloth winding and interknitted tie strandsuniting the body of metallic wool into a compact form.

2. Padding material consisting of a.

knitted fabric including a succession of parallel rovings formed ofelongated massed metallic fibers and a plurality of transverselydisposed metallic wires knitted about such rovings.

3. A metallic fabric consisting of a body of metallic wool into whichare interknitted with each other a plurality of wire strands to form anelastic metallic fabric.

4. A metallic fabric comprising a knit metallic fabric consisting of abody of metallic wool into which are knitted a plurality of metallicwire strands,- said metallic wire strands being formed into successionsof interlocking loops enclosing portions of the metallic wool.

5. A metallic fabric comprising a plurality of wire strands and asuccession of. parallel rovings of metallic wool fibers, the wirestrands being interknit about the metallic rovings into a fabric ofsubstantially uniform thickness.

6. A metallic fabric comprising a body of metallic wool fibers and tiestrands interknit sion of parallel strands, each consisting of amultitude of substantially parallel filaments of metallic wool and aseries of spaced wire strands extending transversely of the strands ofmetallic wool and interlaced therebetween, thereby binding the parallelstrands of metallic wool into a form retaining body of predeterminedthickness.

8. A metallic fabric comprising a succession of individually separablestrands of metallic wool each composed of a multitude of metallicfilaments extending in substantially parallel relation and a series oftransversely disposed tie strands uniting the strands of metallic woolone to another into a continuous flat form retaining fabric.

9. The herein described method of forming a metallic fabric, consistingin arranging a succession of parallel rovings of metallic fibers into afabricated layer .and knitting about such parallel rovings a successionof transversely disposed tie wires.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this 23 day ofFebruary, A. D. 1928.

CHARLES EDWARD GALVIN.

